In this episode, we spend some time with Vickie Sullivan, an expert turbulator and marketing strategist for thought leaders. She shares her tips and tricks to get your ideas out there in this chaotic environment. She’s smart, funny, and wise. Tune in to this savvy guide to the world of thought leadership and influence.
Here are Vickie’s Top Ten Tips and Tricks for the New Thought Leadership:
- It’s all chaos right now, so plan accordingly and use emotional reminders and lead marketing with an experience so your customers/audience can focus on discovery.
- The new thought leadership combines expert knowledge with being an influencer – labels and definitions cut throught the white noise.
- Establish a role in the conversation by defining it for yourself. Are you the navigator, advocate, best friend, expert, connector?
- You need a signature voice, not just a presentaiton style. You need to be likeable, more relaxed, and human.
- Look to the periphery, don’t stick in one lane.
- Fight the fatigue, find ways to recompose and renew, take a break.
- Have an approach for failure, how do you respond when things go bad?
- Set milestones and benchmarks to assess the journey and course correctwhen necessary.
- Always ask, is this the new normal, before reacting to a trend.
- Be less of an expert and more of a collaborator, people love collaboration.
- Bonus: People also love DIY, so give them the recipe.
About Vickie:
Specializing in differentiating in hyper-competitive markets, Vickie Sullivan has launched thousands of thought leaders since 1987. She is a popular speaker throughout the U.S. and Canada on how to stand out in crowded markets and strategies that position experts for lucrative opportunities. Her market intelligence updates are distributed to experts in the U.S. as well as 17 other countries.
Ms. Sullivan has served twice on the editorial board for Professional Speaker Magazine, and currently serves as contributing editor for RainToday.com, a prominent community of 120,000 professional service providers. Her articles have been published in other publications such as Presentations and USA Today magazines and the Handbook of Business Strategy. Ms. Sullivan also has been quoted in mainstream media such as Fortune.com, The New York Times and Investor’s Business Daily. Her work and views have appeared in books such as Secrets of Six-Figure Women by Barbara Stanney, Getting Started in Consulting by Alan Weiss and Mastering Work Less, Make More by Jennifer White.
Ms. Sullivan’s groundbreaking work has earned her an appointment on the Women’s Leadership Board for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. As a former member of the mentoring committee, she has given three presentations to the student body there on personal branding and prominence. She also served on the executive committee from 2009 to 2011 as communications chair.
Learn more about Vickie on LinkedIn and on her website. Be sure to check out her blog for more tips and tricks.
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